J.D. Davis spoke to reporters at Clover Park prior to the start of the New York Mets’ spring training game against the St. Louis Cardinals and said that he expects to be ready on Opening Day.
According to Deesha Thosar of the New York Daily News, he will need approximately 34 at-bats before the start of the regular season and took full swings for the second straight day on Wednesday.
Davis, 26, is recovering from a shoulder injury suffered on a diving play against the Detroit Tigers this spring. While it didn’t show any serious injury, it did reveal an old labrum injury and that required rest to recover from. However, it appears he has now.
“After looking at it with the inflammation going down and no stiffness or anything like that, we kind of put one and two together that it was an older injury and it wasn’t affecting me at all,” Davis said about what showed up on the MRI as detailed by Anthony DiComo of MLB.com.
Prior to the injury, Davis was 2-for-7 with a double and RBI while playing both third base and left field.
In 2019, the right-handed hitter broke out in a big way as he hit .307/.369/.527 with 22 home runs, 57 RBI, and a 136 wRC+ to give himself a 2.4 fWAR.
Defensively, he struggled, though, as he had -9 DRS and a -1.6 UZR over 220 innings at third base to go along with -11 DRS and a -4.7 UZR over 585 1/3 innings in left field.
